Unbelievable destruction
by Jim Wallis
Source: SojoNet 2002 (c) http://www.sojo.net
[4-12-02]
I spent this evening with two dear friends whose lives
are committed to peace and justice, and whose hearts are breaking over
the horrific violence in the Middle East. Jean Zaru is a Palestinian
Quaker whose daughter just told her on the telephone, "Mother, if
you came back to Ramallah, you wouldn't recognize it. The Ramallah you
knew is not here anymore." Jean left there on March 1 for a
speaking tour in Europe and America, and is now trapped outside her own
country. Emotional conversations with family members tell of
"unbelievable destruction." Her daughter's family has had no
food, water, or electricity for days. Jean's relatives, like most
Palestinians in Israeli-occupied West Bank cities, can't leave their
homes, except when ordered to by Israeli soldiers going house to house -
like two of her elderly sisters-in-law who were forced to stand in the
cold rain until 1:30 in the morning while their home was ransacked.
"I don't mean to just tell my personal stories," apologizes
Jean Zaru, "but unfortunately these are cases of what everyone is
experiencing now."
Then Michael and Deborah Lerner came to our home for
dinner. They are in Washington to protest what the Israeli government is
doing to Palestinians. Michael is the editor of Tikkun magazine and a
rabbi who condemns the Palestinian suicide bombings in the strongest
terms, loves Israel, but hates what its government is doing on the West
Bank. "When such a slaughter is going on, one has to cry out!"
anguishes Michael. Both believe the daily carnage and pain in the Middle
East again reveals the futility and tragedy of the cycle of violence.
Attacks by the Israeli army on the cities and refugee
camps of the West Bank have entered a second week. Reports from the
international media, human rights organizations, and both Palestinians
and Israelis grow in daily horror. Israeli tanks roll through the
streets of occupied cities, stopping food shipments, disrupting water
lines, shelling and rocketing the civilian infrastructure, raiding
hospitals, and even preventing ambulances from reaching the wounded and
dying. The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, traditional site of the
birth of Jesus, remains under siege. Reports suggest that hundreds may
have been already killed, thousands injured, and thousands more
arrested, detained, and interrogated.
Prime Minister Sharon claims to be uprooting those
responsible for a horrible wave of terrorist suicide bombings in Israel,
which killed more than 100 people in the last month. And those who
committed the bombings claim to be resisting the Israeli occupation of
the West Bank.
"Terrorism!" shouts one side.
"Occupation!" shouts back the other side. Each side seems to
have only one message, never hearing the other. "Occupation!
Terrorism!" The competing claims fly through the air while innocent
civilians die. Both realities are true. The Israeli occupation of the
West Bank and Gaza is illegal and immoral, and it must end. Palestinians
are entitled to live in peace and security without blockades, closures,
and the daily harassment of their entire population. But bombing
innocent Israeli civilians is not the way to end the occupation. The
moral truth that condemns both is that there is nothing - no cause, no
ideology, no true religion - that can ever justify the deliberate
killing of civilians. That is the definition of terrorism.
Whether it is a Palestinian with an explosive belt
blowing up a Seder celebration or an Israeli pilot in an Apache gunship
firing rockets into a refugee camp - it is terrorism. Elderly people and
children, women and men, deliberately killed for political objectives is
terrorism.
The Israelis have the superior firepower, and, in
these past 18 months of bloody conflict, Palestinian deaths (1,381)
outnumber Israeli deaths (434). But the mothers and fathers of dead
children take no interest in talk of relative political power or
symmetry. Dead children simply rend the souls of their parents and cause
the God who created those children to weep.
The immediate question is how to stop the current
violence. It will take immediate action by the U.S. and the world
community to achieve a situation in which a secure State of Israel and a
viable State of Palestine live side by side in peace. The United States
should immediately work to bring about the creation of an international
protection force to shield both Israelis and Palestinians from further
violence, and call a regional peace conference including Israel, the
Arab states, along with religious leaders and civil society
organizations.
There has been enough killing - it's time for peace.
We're working with another courageous rabbi, Arthur Waskow, on
expressing this in a statement. We'll send it out in a day or so for you
to read, respond, and pass along to others. [It's
here now, for you to consider and share. Your WebWeaver.]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Voices
of peace
The voices of peace and nonviolence, though
marginalized by both sides, continue to challenge their respective
authorities.
Hanan Ashwari (Palestinian Legislative Council): "Why and
when did we allow a few from our midst to interpret Israeli military
attacks on innocent Palestinian lives as license to do the same to their
civilians? Where are those voices and forces that should have stood up
for the sanctity of innocent lives (ours and theirs), instead of
allowing the horror of our own suffering to silence us?" http://www.sabeel.org/news/cstone23/page6.html
Jonathan Kuttab and Mubarak Awad (lawyer, and human
rights activist): "The Palestinian people have a genuine chance
to achieve their national goals, in spite of the enormous gap between
them and their foes, if they pursue a conscious, organized strategy of
nonviolent resistance to the occupation on a massive scale." http://www.palestinecenter.org/cpap/pubs/20020329ib.html
Neta Golan (Israel's Gush Shalom): "Inside
the pock-marked building surrounded by Israeli tanks and snipers, there
is one question on everyone's mind: how many international laws does
Israel need to break before the U.N. demands a full and immediate
withdrawal? The list of violations is reaching unprecedented
levels." http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story
020406185131645
B'Tselem (The Israeli Information Center for Human
Rights in the Occupied Territories): "Endangering the lives of
innocent civilians constitutes a flagrant violation of the most basic
principles of international humanitarian law. Such acts cannot be
justified based on "military necessity" as the IDF has
frequently claimed in regard to many other violations." http://www.btselem.org
Rabbi Arik Ascherman (Rabbis for Human Rights):
"These are the kind of actions which we must oppose, even when we
are suffering from the terror attacks which we condemn. The true test of
our humanity and commitment to human rights is whether we can stand up
at moments like this and say, 'This crosses the line'."
